Gastric bypass surgery is a medical procedure to reduce the functional size of the stomach of a patient. The result of the procedure is an altered response to the intake of food or other ingested substances. The procedure is often used to treat patients suffering from obesity and other medical conditions tied to food intake.
One popular form of the procedure is Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. In a Roux-en-Y procedure, the surgeon creates a small stomach pouch and then creates a bypass to the small intestines with an alimentary limb. As a result, food bypasses the majority of the stomach when traveling through the gastrointestinal tract. The smaller functional area of the stomach limits the amount of food a patient can comfortably eat, thereby decreasing the overall intake of calories.
Sleeve gastrostomy is another popular surgical weight-loss procedure. In this procedure the stomach is reduced to a fraction of its original size by stapling and removing a portion of the stomach along its greater curvature. This procedure is increasing in popularity, as it is an easier procedure with fewer complications as compared to a Roux-en-Y procedure, and it has comparable results in terms of weight loss.
Another procedure that restricts food intake is the Magenstrasse and Mill Procedure. In this procedure, a narrow gastric tube is created by stapling from the antrum up to the fundus, thereby reducing the functional size of the stomach to restrict food intake. Although the fundus and greater curve of the stomach remain in situ, the functional portion of the stomach is limited to the lesser curvature formed by the stapling.
While the described procedures have been effective in facilitating weight loss, they are associated with several disadvantages. Each of the described procedures is highly invasive and requires extensive modifications of the natural internal anatomy of a patient. They each come with complications often associated with highly invasive surgery, including bleeding, anesthesia complications, deep vein thrombosis, staple line leaking, infection, etc. The threat of these complications may limit the number of obese patients or patients with other disorders who are able to benefit from gastric bypass procedures, as these patients are often particularly sensitive to medical complications.